# Pennsylvania requiring PRIVATE schools to recite the Pledge of Allegiance? WTF?! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 18, 2002, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380 "2002-11-18T21:01:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/1 "2002-11-18T21:01:01Z")
[According to CNN](http://www.cnn.com/2002/EDUCATION/11/15/pennsylvania.patriotism.ap/index.html), > [@](#): > > HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) – Students **in private** and public schools would be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the national anthem each morning under a bill unanimously passed this week by the state Senate. Emphasis mine. The bill allows for individual students to opt out “on the basis of religious conviction or personal belief,” so I’ve got no beef from that angle. My problem here is the notion that the Pennsylvania state Senate thinks they have that sort of jurisdiction over private schools. Who exactly empowers them to tell, say, a Quaker private school that _they_ have to lead the students in the PoA every morning? That’s none of their business. (Mods - I don’t know if this is exactly ‘great’ debate material or not, but I couldn’t see that it would fit better anywhere else. Feel free to move it wherever.) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/2 "2002-11-18T21:04:08Z")
Damnation. I find myself standing four-square with RT. Again. What’s this, twice in one month? ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/3 "2002-11-18T21:11:22Z")
They’ve probably stuck it under the same logic that says the state board of education can dictate the educational standards that a private school or even a home schooling person has to uphold. This is not to say that I agree with the decision, just that the state does have the ability to mandate things to private education from K - 12. Private schools in Pennsylvania have to use a state approved curriculum and meet state standards, so it’s not as if being ‘private’ means ‘free from all state regulation’. That said, I think forcing anyone to sing the National Anthem or recite the Pledge is, whether legally possible or not, wrong as a matter of ethic. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/4 "2002-11-18T21:20:51Z")
I agree with all posters above. It’s unfortunate that the state should require private schools to recite the P of A. As **catsix** points out, this requirement follows logic that gives the state far too much control over private schools in other ways as well. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/5 "2002-11-18T21:28:10Z")
—Students in private and public schools would be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the national anthem each morning under a bill unanimously passed this week by the state Senate.— My question is… or else what? Public schools may have to follow orders, but to get private schools to fall in line, what are they going to do? What are the threats? On pain of revoking their liscences? I especially liked this part: —“It’s getting away from teaching about what our country stands for, what our founders did, and why we have the country we have,” Egolf said.— Oh, those founders. They loved seeing kids reciting the pledge of allegience in public schools they did. Yes, the old beloved public schools that DIDN’T EXIST in their day and the pledge that also DIDN’T EXIST. If you want to teach kids about the nation, what it stands for, how it came to be, then for goodness sakes just DO it. That’s what history and civics classes are supposed to be for! There’s a big jump between teaching people about a credo and forcing them to recite the credo as if it was their own, and it’s just plain dishonest to pretend that they are one and the same end: that we aren’t “teaching about” if we aren’t “forcing to recite.” But, if people want to force schools and kids to recite the pledge or sing songs, okay, I get it: you’ve demonstrated how powerful you are. You can make us jump through hoops to please you. good for you. But for goodness sakes, don’t try to pretend that this is something the founders would have praised. The founders who _decried_ publically led or demanded shows of piety or patriotism! The only people that are supposed to have to take loyalty oaths and proclaim certain beliefs are politicians and other government employees. THEY are declaring loyalty to US, the people. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/6 "2002-11-18T21:41:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > Damnation. I find myself standing four-square with RT. Again. What’s this, twice in one month? It’s a sign of the end-times, **Lib**. 😉 **catsix** - I can see them requiring, under the rubric of educational standards, that private-school kids _pass a quiz_ on the PoA. But a requirement that the school lead the students in daily recitation can hardly be interpreted as an ‘educational standard’. It’s indoctrination, pure and simple. Now I’m enough of a communitarian (this is where **Lib** and I part ways) that I believe that a little indoctrination isn’t a bad thing, as long as the right to opt out is preserved. And IMHO, there’s no reason why the commonwealth of Pennsylvania shouldn’t lead kids in a PoA (free from religious phraseology, that is) in _its own schools_. But not in private schools. They don’t own them, and there are limits to what they can require them to do. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/7 "2002-11-18T21:43:35Z")
In some ways the state regulation is justified. Hang on a second and let me explain what I mean. In order to ensure that all students within the state receive an adequate education, it makes sense that the state have some degree of input into the curriculum of any school, enough to require a school (or a home schooler) to demonstrate that the students are learning to read, write, do arithmetic, and that they’re being exposed to arts, literature, music and science so that they are well prepared for their futures as productive adult members of society. However, I think that often that basic idea is used to shove through legislation that far over-reaches the basic intent of education. We definitely don’t want one school teaching students to read and write and another school (hypoerbole) having them watch soap operas all day long. But IMO, this Pledge thing is the long arm of the law reaching too far. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/8 "2002-11-19T01:29:04Z")
Of course, the point may be moot as a bill passed by one branch of the legislature(which appears unconstitutional on the surface) is hardly likely to make it through the next branch and be signed by the Governor. Unconstitutional(and unsound) bills originate in every legislature in every state, probably. Most(thankfully) die. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/9 "2002-11-19T01:36:04Z")
Q, if it was originated in the Senate, then they pass it and THEN the House gets a crack at it? and then the Governor? I thought legislation went from House to Senate to Governor? ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/10 "2002-11-19T04:36:49Z")
But for the language about the “Pennsylvania Mandatory Public Deceleration of Loyalty Act” being unanimously passed by the state senate, I’d think that this may be an attempt by the legislature to embarrass the Governor. It is hard to believe that the state senate unanimously approved this. Is PA awash in a hysteria of conformist patriotism? There has got to be more to this. ---
**Author:** ![Devil\_s\_Advocate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Devil\_s\_Advocate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Devil_s_Advocate)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/11 "2002-11-19T04:51:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GusNSpot \* > \*\*Q, if it was originated in the Senate, then they pass it and THEN the House gets a crack at it? and then the Governor? > > I thought legislation went from House to Senate to Governor? \*\* In the U.S. Congress, bills can originate in either house, except that tax bills must originate in the House of Representatives, I believe. Pennsylvania’s legislature may follow different rules, however, for all I know. (Do any states have a one-house legislature?) But I’m fairly certain that in all state governments, a bill is sent to the governor to be signed or vetoed after it is passed by both houses, just as the U.S. Congress sends its bills to the president. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/12 "2002-11-19T04:54:41Z")
> [@](#): > > (Do any states have a one-house legislature?) Nebraska is the only U.S. state with a unicameral legislature. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/13 "2002-11-19T05:08:14Z")
Apparently, the Pennsylvania legislators forget they lost the same issue the first time around. In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled in its [Gobitis (310 US 586)](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=310&invol=586) decision that school children could not be forced to recite the Pledge as a part of their school day routine. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/14 "2002-11-19T06:04:17Z")
For anyone who isn’t clear as to what action the other chamber of the PA state legislature has taken: The House has already passed a similar measure, according to [the link at the top of the page (and repeated here for good measure).](http://www.cnn.com/2002/EDUCATION/11/15/pennsylvania.patriotism.ap/index.html) As happens in the federal legislature, the bills will be reconciled in a conference committee (with the result voted on again by both chambers) before being sent to the governor for signature into law. And I’m sickened by the very thought of it. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/15 "2002-11-19T06:30:58Z")
—In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled in its Gobitis (310 US 586) decision that school children could not be forced to recite the Pledge as a part of their school day routine.— That was 1943. This is a very different court. —Now I’m enough of a communitarian (this is where Lib and I part ways) that I believe that a little indoctrination isn’t a bad thing— The ultimate in the tail wagging the dog, IMHO. That a civic community has values that it wants to instill is wonderful. But the government is not the locus to do this. The whole POINT of our polis is that the people’s values collectively inform the decisions of the government via the political process. The government then acts on those values via the law But to have the government’s authority extend backwards to telling people what their values should BE in the first place defeats that whole purpose: it breaks down the whole rationale behind having a broad political process in the first place. Imagine what will happen as methods of indoctrination become more and more sophisticated. This is not a bussiness we want our government to be in. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/16 "2002-11-19T07:08:58Z")
Actually the 1940 _Gobitis_ decision referred to above _upheld_ the decision to expel from the public schools children who refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. However, three years later–by which point the United States was engaged in a world war–the court reversed that decision, in [_West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette_](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=319&invol=624), which I always enjoy quoting lengthy passages of: > [@](#): > > Government of limited power need not be anemic government. Assurance that rights are secure tends to diminish fear and jealousy of strong government, and by making us feel safe to live under it makes for its better support. Without promise of a limiting Bill of Rights it is doubtful if our Constitution could have mustered enough strength to enable its ratification. To enforce those rights today is not to choose weak government over strong government. It is only to adhere as a means of strength to individual freedom of mind in preference to officially disciplined uniformity for which history indicates a disappointing and disastrous end… > > The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections… > > Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good as well as by evil men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon but at other times and places the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be. Probably no deeper division of our people could proceed from any provocation than from finding it necessary to choose what doctrine and whose program public educational officials shall compel youth to unite in embracing. Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition, as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard. > > It seems trite but necessary to say that the First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority. > > The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization. To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. > > If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us… If school boards and state legislatures really want to teach students to love their country, _I_ say having them study the _Barnette_ decision will do a lot more than having them recite the Pledge of Allegiance. ---
**Author:** ![litost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@litost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/litost)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/17 "2002-11-19T08:14:57Z")
Beautifully written! That’ll also be a great passage for testing reading comprehension in exams such as the GRE etc. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/18 "2002-11-19T13:47:59Z")
As a resident of the aforementioned state, I’d like to note that a unanimous decision among the meatpickles in Harrisburg is not necessarily agreed with by the good citizens of Penn’s Woods. Pennsylvania is just a great big cesspool of hickness bookended by Pittsburgh and Philly. Case in point: the good and true City Council of my hometown and current habitation, Altoona (pop. 45,000) is, at the moment, doing a convoluted philosophical jig in an attempt to return a Ten Commandents plaque to City Hall, whence it was removed during renovations a few years ago. The latest gambit is the authorization of a “local history” museum/room in the City Hall in which the plaque and various other decoration removed from the old building would be displayed. The ACLU is not particularly swayed by this little bit of prevarication, thank goodness. Thank you and good morning. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/19 "2002-11-19T15:51:23Z")
**MEB** , thank you very much for the quote from Barnette. Mr. Justice Jackson was very much in accord with what I understand America to be all about in that case. There are three other paragraphs from that case that I think have a lot of pertinence to the discussion being conducted here, the first from Mr. Jackson’s opinion for the court, the second from the concurrence by Messrs. Black and Douglas, and the third from the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Murphy: > [@](#): > > The Fourteenth Amendment, as now applied to the States, protects the citizen against the State itself and all of its creatures-Boards of Education not excepted. These have, of course, important, delicate, and highly discretionary functions, but _none that they may not perform within the limits of the Bill of Rights_. That they are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes. > > Words uttered under coercion are proof of loyalty to nothing but self- interest. Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds, inspired by a fair administration of wise laws enacted by the people’s elected representatives within the bounds of express constitutional prohibitions. These laws must, to be consistent with the First Amendment, permit the widest toleration of conflicting viewpoints consistent with a society of free men. > > Any spark of love for country which may be generated in a child or his associates by forcing him to make what is to him an empty gesture and recite words wrung from him contrary to his religious beliefs is overshadowed by the desirability of preserving freedom of conscience to the full. It is in that freedom and the example of persuasion, not in force and compulsion, that the real unity of America lies. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/20 "2002-11-19T19:22:59Z")
> [@](#): > > _Is PA awash in a hysteria of conformist patriotism? There has got to be more to this._ Not that this Pittsburgher has noticed. The legislature in Harrisburg is not always in tune with the population of the Commonwealth. The majority of my neighborhood seems to have the philosphy ‘Love my country, fear my government.’ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380.md?page=2)